"Dretske remarks that there are 'two important differences between introspective knowledge and other forms of displaced perception' (p. 60). What are these differences Are they enough to call into question his view of introspective knowledge as displaced perception" The second chapter of Naturalizing the Mind is in the main an attempt to provide an account of introspective knowledge consistent with the Representational Thesis. Dretske takes introspective knowledge to be a given and proceeds by t...

Plato was a philosopher who was born in Athens (470-390 BCE), and was also a student of Socrates. He felt that intelligence and one's perception belonged to completely independent realms or real ties. He believed that general concepts of knowledge were predestined, or placed in the soul before birth even occurred in living things. Plato believed that the cosmos was intelligible, and that the universe was mathematically understandable. He believed that mathematical objects could be seen as perfec...

A discussion of the Duality of Knowledge and the Way in which Human Interpretation Skews its Perception Since the dawn of human civilization, knowledge had always been a controlling force of humanity. The greatest of men and the bloodiest of all tyrants have both used knowledge as a tool to secure control over thousands and to ensure their place in history. Similarly religion, a force that has been around since prehistoric man, continues to manipulate the minds of millions in an effort to contro...

David Hume, in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, discusses how we cannot predict the future. Even though our experiences and our reasoning tell us that objects act in a predictable way, we still cannot prove how objects will act in the future based upon previous interactions. After biting into a piece of pizza we expect an enjoyable taste. This enjoyable taste is expected because our past experiences have proven this to us. Even though we think we can predict that the pizza will act the...

Empiricism Empiricism by nature is the belief that there is no knowledge without experience. How can one know what something tastes like if they have never tasted it? For example, would someone know that an apple is red if they have never actually have seen one. Someone can tell you an apple is red, but, if you never have seen one, can you really be sure? Empiricists use three anchor points in which they derive their opinions from. The first of these points is; the only source of genuine knowled...

Descartes vs. Plato In the field of philosophy there can be numerous answers to a general question, depending on a particular philosopher's views on the subject. Often times an answer is left undetermined. In the broad sense of the word and also stated in the dictionary philosophy can be described as the pursuit of human knowledge and human values. There are many different people with many different theories of knowledge. Two of these people, also philosophers, in which this paper will go into d...

Wherever we run across a morality we find an assessment and ranking of human drives and actions. These assessments and rankings always express the needs of a community and herd: whatever profits it in the first place-and in the second and third-is also the supreme measure of the value of all individuals. By means of morality, individuals are led to be functions of the herd and to attribute value to themselves as merely functions morality is herd instinct in the individual. (Pg. 130, Nietzsche) N...

Philosophy is a subject that can take many twists and turns before it finds an answer to a general question. Sometimes, an answer is still left un found. Philosophy, in its broadest terms, can be described as the systematic pursuit of knowledge and human excellence. What we are concerned with is knowledge. Many people have theories of knowledge. Amongst them, there are two we will be looking at, Descartes and Plato. We will examine Descartes epistemology in Meditations on First Philosophy and Pl...